Wednesday, September 22, 2010

In my futile attempt at 'catching up' I'm going to post some pictures of my boys' first day of preschool. It happened exactly 2 weeks ago, September 8th. Gabe was not so enthused about going to preschool, despite many failed attempts at sneaking into Julian's class last year. To say that I was nervous for my baby would be an understatement.

Gabe was really excited to wear his backpack, like J.

Julian goes to class 15 whole minutes before Gabe does. So we had some time to kill. Before class started, we ran into one of Julian's best friends, Mya!

J is obviously thrilled for mamarazzi to be in full force.

I think in this picture, he was trying to tell me that his class is this way...

Julian, as expected, adores preschool. Loves his teachers and is generally excited to go. The one drawback for him? The clothing requirement. I think he'd like school much better if he were free to wear his undies.

Gabe on the other hand, he's taken some convincing. Today was the first day he didn't cry. The first day he played with his teachers, and the first day he didn't look at me like, "OH MY GOSH MOM YOU SAVED ME" when I picked him up. So we're gonna take that as a good sign.

Gabe's first day of school stamp. (I totally remember Julian LOVING the stamps in the 2 year old class! Gabe's following suit)

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Another 3 day weekend has come, and passed. I can't believe the unofficial end of summer has already graced us with its presence.

Typically, labor day is spent out in nature, or camping, or something adventurous like that. Not for the Palizzis. We prefer a different sort of adventure. The Mall of America.

Now for those of you that have never been before, let me just say it's massive. Like whoa, overwhelming, and CRAZY! Luckily we got there shortly after opening, so we were able to find a parking spot relatively easily. We got to park and enter at my favorite, favorite store, one that I miss so much. Nordstrom. I didn't get to shop much though, 2 kids, and an impatient husband will do that. But just being there, made me feel good. We also got something special outside of Nordstrom, See's Candy. Now I've heard rumblings that there is a store in Des Moines, I just haven't had the luck to find it. But after purchasing a pound of dark chocolates, we were good to go.

I have some friends, that I met online, FIVE years ago! On a parenting forum, for people due in March 2006. They live in the Mall of America's general vicinity, and I was lucky enough to meet up with them back in October of 2008! We were lucky enough to meet up with Ginger and her two girls at the Rain Forest Cafe! Which was super fun for the kids, and had delicious food! I got the nachos, which is an appetizer, but is huge! And Barry had fish tacos (No idea where that one came from, straight outta left field!) And the boys had good ol' Mac and Cheese and Chicken Nuggets. But they were good eaters, and ate quite a bit of their food.

Oh! Something I forgot to mention, Mall of America has an amusement park, INSIDE of the mall. Like a full fledged amusement park. And it's Nickelodeon themed! Which means all of the boys' favorites, Spongebob, Wonderpets, and Dora and her cousin Diego! They were stoked to see all of the decorations, and were able to ride 2 rides really quickly with absolutely no line! After lunch, it was a different story. We had 6 points (I guess it's like tickets)and waited FOREVER for the carousel. The boys were satisfied with their 3 rides, though Diego's rescue ride scared Gabe. Barry said he was shaking :( Poor baby.

They also have a LEGOS store. And I don't know what magically happened, but Legos? They're the shiz around here. The only thing Julian wants to play with, the only thing he wants to look at, when we go to Target. So a whole Legos store? Heaven for the kid. Apparently there's usually a HUGE store, with huge Lego figures and crazy things, but this store chocked full of Legos was enough to satisfy my little block head :)

Here are some pictures from our little trip-The kids outside of Rainforest Cafe